#482 John Oliver, Gandhi, Abby Johnson & Talbert Swan October 11, 2019
China’s One-Child Policy Designed by Its Military
John Oliver’s show, Last Week Tonight, covers very serious topics in depth but with a comedic (and vulgar) tone. Oliver accounts himself “pro-choice” on abortion; he understands forced abortions as a horror story, and details why. This last Sunday’s episode observed the current Chinese government’s 70th anniversary with a look at the roots and consequences of China’s one-child policy. (We covered a documentary on this policy in a recent blog post). He covers the resulting gender imbalance and sex trafficking. He mentions the program was originally designed by the Chinese military. His take was that men were designing something that would badly impact women. Yet men are fathers, and pregnancy doesn’t happen without their participation, so it’s not being male where the problem lies. A military mindset, however, makes sense as a connection.
Join the Back from the Brink Campaign! The danger of nuclear war is tragically all too real today, and is growing. To counter this danger, CLN is proud to endorse Back from the Brink, a national grassroots initiative that seeks to fundamentally change U.S. nuclear weapons policy. This initiative lays out crucial changes to pursue, such as renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first and ending the sole unchecked authority of any U.S. president to launch a nuclear attack. Back from the Brink’s ultimate goal: an agreement among nuclear-armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. We encourage other organizations and individuals to endorse and join this initiative and help build a safer world for our children to inherit.
Latest CLN Blog Post: Gandhi October 2 was Mohandas Gandhi’s 150th birthday anniversary. We celebrate with a collection of quotations - Remembering Gandhi at 150: The Power of Nonviolence and Respect for Life
Quotations of the Week Note: A recent Twitter flame war between Abby Johnson and Bishop Talbert Swan has been publicized. Unfortunately, in cyberspace people sometimes say things they wouldn’t say face to face. Both used unpersuasive wording, closing doors to dialog, and supplying their detractors fuel for criticizing them. We’re not interested in who started it or who said worse things. Both are devout Christians and therefore aware of Jesus’ clear sayings on nonviolent handling of provocations. In disputing priorities among issues, they might have discovered more agreement using dialog. We offer positive quotations coming from both to set a more positive tone. We ask both, as widely-admired leaders in movements advocating forms of nonviolence, to reflect more deeply on the responsibility for role modeling that being a leader entails. As always, we call on all individuals and groups who share our respect for all life, as our Mission Statement says, “to maintain a cooperative spirit of peace, reconciliation, and respect.” Open Letter to Hillary Clinton, section on “Justice for the Unborn” Signed by Bishop Talbert Swan and several other Black church leaders
For the same reasons that we as black Christian leaders oppose racism, unjust wars, capital punishment and euthanasia, we oppose the violent denial of life to the unborn through abortion. . . . Abortion in the black community has had a catastrophic impact. . . . How do you justify your unconscionable silence in the face of such destruction of innocent black life? Don’t black lives matter? Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood clinic director
My own story is one of redemption. I vehemently oppose the death penalty because it perpetuates the illusion that certain individuals are beyond redemption. Regardless of someone’s past actions, their life always has value. For all who are pro-life, we are called to oppose all threats to life from conception to natural death – including the death penalty.
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